


Boxes

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [64]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, I'm Sorry, exposition chapter basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 07:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11458524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: A courier arrived on a Tuesday evening with two packages for Amelia Williams.





	Boxes

**Author's Note:**

> I just hammered out many of the finer details of my ever-expanding outline for the rest of the story in light of the end of Series 10 (and I would really love to wait to see how the special goes but I can’t take *that* much of a hiatus- I am hoping we at least get the announcement of 13 while I’m still writing.) and let me just say, spoiler-free… hang on to your flowcharts, kids. This is where it gets complicated.

 

[Earth, 1945]

A courier arrived on a Tuesday evening with two packages for Amelia Williams.  Milly set them on the kitchen table before going to open a bottle of wine.

“What’s that?” Rory asked, glancing over his shoulder from where he was cooking on the hob.

“Not sure.  Maybe it’s something from Amy’s publisher?”

Athena half-stood from her chair at the table to peer over at the packages.  “There’s no return addresses.”

Milly hummed noncommittally as she took a seat with her glass, eyes already scanning over the front page of the daily paper.  Something about it was needling at the back of her mind, something she was missing.  Something right in front of her nose.  

“Milly…” Athena trailed off.

Something really obv— _Oh!  The date!_ “Rory, what time is it?” Milly asked urgently.

“Um, half-seven, why?”

She stood abruptly, the chair legs groaning across the tile as she dashed for the radio.

“What is it, Milly?” Rory asked, watching her over his shoulder.

“Fourteenth of August!”

As she turned the volume dial, the voice of Harry Truman filled the kitchen.   _“...This is the day when fascism finally dies, as we always knew it would.”_

“Oh, wouldn’t that’ve been nice,” Amy sighed as she entered the kitchen.

“And at the nominal price of nuclear genocide,” Milly sneered darkly.  “Really great solution, humans.”

“Oi,” Rory said, “easy with the speciesist talk, if you please.”

Amy kissed him on the cheek before grabbing a wine glass.

“Oh, Amy, you’ve got mail,” Milly said absently, tuning back in to the broadcast, when she glanced over at the table to see Athena frozen in place, staring straight ahead in the direction of the packages.

“Athena?”

The radio host droned on, _“...official, at seven-oh-three pm today on the White House lawn, President Truman announced the Japanese surrender..."_

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Amy asked, abandoning her glass and hurrying to Athena’s side.

After a moment Athena blinked as if waking from a dream, and glanced at Milly and Amy, her eyes wide and glassy.  She sniffed as she sat shakily back into her chair.

“Athena, what’s wrong?” Milly asked.

“One’s from Mom,” she said, her voice low and scratchy, pointing at the packages.

 Amy placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.  “How do you know?”

“Dad just told me.”

___

“It’s her book,” Amy said, staring down at the manuscript of _Melody Malone: Private Detective in Old New York Town._  “It’s River’s book.”

Milly frowned in sympathy at the haunted look on her face.  “We need to get it published.”

“Do we?” Amy asked, with a bitter laugh.  “We’re here because of what we read in this book.  If we don’t publish it, we never read it.  Maybe we figured it out without the spoilers.  Maybe Rory didn’t get nabbed by the angel and we all went round the pub like it was nothin’.  Wouldn’t it be better if we met you girls properly, when you were born, with your mum and dad too?  If we weren’t stuck in this rubbish time?”

“Amy…” Rory grimaced and rested his hand on her arm.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Milly said.  “One more paradox—”

“—would burn New York, I know,” Amy sighed.

“And who knows what else.  Maybe we’re never born in that alternate timeline.  It’s all a bit delicate, when you’re living out of order.”

Amy turned the single loose page that had been on top of the manuscript over in her hand again.

“What did she say?” Athena asked quietly.

Amy mustered a faint smile as she glanced up at her.  “Mostly just that she’s sorry and she loves us, and to write a note for your Dad.”

“It was before we were born, Athena,” Milly said gently. 

“I know.  Dad said.  Guess I picked up the answerphone when I saw it.”

Athena had gotten lots of little psychic hellos from their father when she was younger, planted in her mind when she was still on Darillium.  As the years went on, they’d gotten fewer and farther between.

“And the other package…?” Rory asked, eyeing the unopened box on the table.

“He didn’t mention that one.”

They opened it.  Among the contents was a small wooden box, etched with Athena’s name in Gallifreyan.  It was locked, but there was a tiny skeleton key taped to the bottom, along with a sticky note that read: 

 

_Do not open until 1996_

_-Dad xo_

 

Also inside the larger box were four personal communicators.  Milly recognised part of the design: it was 51st century tech.  A metal casing around a rectangular LED with what she knew would be five distinct bulbs, like a battery percentage indicator.

The remaining space in the box was stuffed with powdered custard packets and bags of jelly babies, in lieu of packing peanuts.

“What are these?” Rory asked, lifting one of the communicators.  “Pagers?  Is he trying to tell us we’re going to have to relive the nineties _in_ our nineties?  Because I really think I might like to go out before that.”

“I think you’re underestimating how bad the eighties were,” Amy said drily. 

“It’s a communicator,” Milly said.  “But… usually these are linked to a network, for expedition teams to speak to each other.  I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with them.”  

She turned her head at a familiar high-pitched whirring.  Athena was aiming her sonic, orange bulb alight, at one of the communicators.  The neon-green bars of the neural relay lit up.

“‘Dial 9 for an outside line?’” Amy asked, turning one over in her hands.  “There’s only one button.”

“Psychic interface,” said Milly.  “The neural relay… it links to the user’s consciousness.  As far as I know, though, they don’t do extra-temporal communications.  Unless there’s someone else in this time on the network, we’ll just be talking to each other.” 

“So, is he basically giving us mobile phones?”  Rory asked.  “That’s… quite thoughtful of him actually.  It has been pretty rubbish living without them.” 

“He has his moments,” Milly mumbled distractedly.  That couldn’t be the only reason.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask to get the internet on these,” Rory lamented.  Athena pointed her sonic at the other three communicators, switching on the relays.

“Couldn’t have made them a little less conspicuous, though?” Amy asked.  “They don’t exactly look like they belong in 1945.”

“Perception filters,” Athena said, studying her sonic.  “We’ll be the only ones who notice them.”

“That’s his bloody answer to everything,” Milly said under her breath, smiling. 

“So we’re just gonna look like we’re talking to ourselves, then?” Amy snickered.

“It’s New York,” Rory said.  “We’ll be fine.”

___

Milly sat in bed with the lamp on, turning the communicator around and around in her hands.  She knew her dad was living parallel to them over in Bristol, because he was an absolute idiot.  She also knew they couldn’t make contact.

She’d been told very little, growing up, about how this part of their history— her future— went.  Spoilers had shrouded so much of the past in mystery, one known to every member of the family but her— because she was the one with the biggest part left to play.  She hadn’t known how or when or why it would start, until Gallifrey found her.  Then the whole bloody Rube Goldberg machine of causality launched rapidly into motion.

“Well, here I am, Dad,” she sighed aloud.  “Seven years on.  You figured it out yet?”

The ‘Do not open until 1996’ was a bit ominous.  That was when they knew the temporal storm was finally calm enough to enable time travel in Manhattan.  That was the latest possible expiry date on their safety here.  It all had to be solved before then. 

Milly never knew whether they were in for the full fifty-eight years.  Maybe she ought to get more comfortable.  After all, she didn’t really think she wanted to leave Amy and Rory even if she could.  They were family too.  And they only had so long. 

There was a soft knock at her door. 

“Come in,” she called, having no doubt of who it would be.

Athena was nearly twelve now, and it was fascinating to see her slowly becoming the person Milly had always known— and not only physically.  Though this summer she’d cut her hair, framing her face in the familiar short, tight curls that Milly knew, and it was almost like really seeing her sister in Athena for the first time.  

The two of them had looked a bit alike when Athena was young, but the older she got, the more she resembled Mum, while Milly favoured their mother’s previous incarnation.  She could clearly see Mum now in the curve of Athena’s neatly-arched brows, her high cheekbones, even a bit in her mouth and her nose (though she was missing the characteristic bump.)  Funny how Milly had never really noticed the likeness much before, until she watched her growing into it.

It was even better and stranger watching her grow into her personality, seeing little hints and flashes of the ‘final’ Athena beginning to peek through in this proto-version.  Actually, this must have been exactly how Athena had experienced _her_ growing up.  Cute little kid who slowly grew into the ‘older’ sister who’d helped raise her.

It was just about enough to do her head in if she thought about it too much.

Athena closed the door behind her and climbed onto the end of the bed.

“So what do you think?” she asked, inclining her head at the communicator in Milly’s hand.  “We don’t have to tell them now if it’s something… worrying.” 

“Can’t be that bad.  Would Dad deliver bad news in a box full of jelly babies?”

“I dunno.”  Athena smiled sadly.  “Would he?”

Milly sighed.  “Yes.”  She reached over and squeezed Athena’s hand encouragingly.  “Maybe he really just wants us to have mobiles?  At least then I can let you know if my train’s held up when I’m coming to get you from Penny’s.  Though, of course, we’ll have to make sure no one hears us on them.”

“Seems risky.  Is it really worth it?”

“God, yes.  At least it’s _something._  Honestly, you just can’t appreciate how utterly debilitating it is to live without wifi.”

“So you all keep saying,” Athena said, rolling her eyes. 

“The future’s going to be a shock for you and no mistake.  You’ll be the cleverest Luddite in the fifty-first century.”

“Looking forward to it,” Athena said lightly.  “What d’you figure’s in my box?”

Milly frowned.  She’d been thinking about that too.

“’Ninety-six.  Maybe a communicator that _does_ do all the relative dimensions.  Maybe a Vortex manipulator like mine.  Maybe… the other piece to your fob watch.”

“Dad said he doesn’t want me to do that.  He always said that, in my head.”

“Not if there’s any other option, no.”

“Do… you know what happens to me?  To us?” Athena half-whispered.

Milly watched Athena for a moment before flashing her a wan smile.  “You never told me too much.  Bloody spoilers.  And as for me?  I haven’t a clue.  Once I’m back in my right time hopefully all this mixed-up buggering wibbly-wobbly nonsense will be done with for good.”

“How’s Dad ever going to fix it?” 

“The way he fixes most things, I assume.  At the very last second, half by accident, whilst yelling about how stupid or clever he is, depending on the day and how obvious it ought to’ve been.” 

Athena’s lips curled into another wistful smile.  “I wish I knew them better.  I was too young, you know?  In my head, in his messages, he always seems so kind and sad.  He calls me kitten.”

Milly smiled.

“I’ve never seen them doing anything crazy like in all the stories.  From what I remember, they’re just… a mom and dad.  Ordinary.  I liked ordinary, I think.”

“So did they,” Milly said.

They sat in thoughtful silence for a few moments.  

“We’ll get back to it someday, yeah?” Milly offered, hoping she sounded encouraging.  “Maybe not _quite_ as calm as on Darillium, but we’ll get it all untangled.  We’ll get to live the right way round." 

“How can you be sure?  You’re the farthest along of any of us, and you’re here with me.”

“Cause right now, all this timey-wimey rubbish is keeping us safe.  We’ve got time travellers after us; they could get us anywhere and anywhen that we’re not hiding out here.  ’Cept actually, they can’t.  Not when we’ve been all up and down the sequence of each other’s lives and causality is tangled right up with us.  They can’t risk making it fall apart.  Once Dad has it sorted, we won’t _need_ to keep making a mess of the order.”

“I haven’t travelled all over, though.  I’ve only been when I was born, and then here."

“Mum and Dad came at Darillium from opposite ends of their timelines.  No one could change anything from those twenty-four years without unwriting the whole lot, and the effects would spiral out of control from there.  That sort of thing keeps stuffy Time Lords up at night.”

“And what keeps them from getting us after our time’s up here?”

“Well, Dad does.  Soon as he works it out.”

“I don’t know.  Something doesn’t seem right.”

Milly swallowed.  “What do you mean?”

Athena frowned.  “Why did they come after us so far apart, if we’re together down the line?”

“Well, because they don’t know that.  You’re hidden from them later.  I was… less hidden.  I got spotted.  I’m the reason all this started.”

Athena snorted.  “I don't think you can take all the credit, no matter how much you want to blame yourself.  Who knows where all this started?  It’s a mess, all of it happening at once, cause it’s got to happen that way.”

“Fucking bootstraps,” Milly sighed. 

Athena’s eyes scrunched up in amusement.

“Oi, language!” Amy’s voice suddenly crackled over the communicator in Milly’s hand, startling her into dropping it onto the bedspread.  

“No corrupting of your sister in this house, that’s _my_ prerogative.  Wait’ll she’s fifteen and get her pissed on cheap beer, that’s the sister’s job.”

Milly and Athena dissolved into laughter.

“Now come upstairs and switch this damn thing off for me,” the voice of Amy commanded.

 


End file.
